A story

This is a story that I originally wrote in 6th grade for a writing contest. It was only about 700 words long and, I'll admit, quite juvenile. The idea sat dormant in my head for a few years, then returned when I was in 8th grade. I re-wrote the story from scratch then, and it turned out much better. But I still wasn't satisfied, so I re-wrote it again last year (9th grade), and it ended up filling about half of my notbook. I got an idea later in the year to write it again, but from a different viewpoint: first person focused on one side instead of third person focused on the other side. Well, let me just put the storyline down here as it exists in my head today.

Basically, there's this not-so-nice tyrant king of a large empire. He rules it undisputed for many years. Then, when his youngest son is about twenty or so, he begins to question his father's iron rule. After a while, the questioning gets out of hand, and the emperor becomes enraged. He throws his son out of the country. This places a deep paternal hatred in the son's heart, and he vows to take down his father's empire. The son establishes a nation to the south of the empire (the place he was banished to), a place that before had been completely devoid of political organization.

After about ten years, the emperor, never having learned of this nation to the south, has completely forgotten about his son and given him up for dead. But the son has been gathering an army over these ten years, an army at least twice as strong as any in history. Slowly, he and his gigantic army set off to unseat the emperor.

They march through the southern marches of the empire (there's a major storyline that happens here, basically one of the main characters will be in a local army of a lord in the southern part of the empire), completely decimating the countryside. Finally, the army reaches the capitol of the empire. The imperial armies have been torn to shreds and have been rushed to the capitol to futiley attempt to protect it and the emperor from the siege that is sure to come.

The battle is long and devastating to both sides, and remains a stalemate for days, nearly a month. Finally, the foreign army manages to break through the final wall of the imperial capital city, and storm the town. There is a short skrimish around the palace, and the horde from the south makes short work of the palace guards and other imperial soldiers that were protecting the emperor. The son, the blood hot in his veins, orders an entire batallion into the palace to find his father and bring him to him for judgement. But when the soldiers find the emperor, he is already dead, his heart pierced by his own hand, the dagger still protruding from his chest. The soldiers bear the body out to the son.

A note is on the blade of the dagger between the hilt and the old man's body. The son is a little shaken at the sight of his father dead, and doesn't know how to react. Slowly, he pulls the dagger and removes the note. He reads: "You are obviously much better than I am. May you rule the empire with grace, my son." (Or something like that) This causes the son to break down emotionally at the thought of what he has caused. All of the death and destruction everywhere, the tearing apart of his homeland, and also the land to the south that was so perfect before he came, and most of all for the fact that he caused his father to die.

The whole story is all bloody and dramatic, triumphant and noble, throughout. But then when you reach the end and share the thoughts of the son, you see that the whole point of the story was not to be bloody and dramatic, but rather that not everything is as straightforward as it seems. It all leads up to the father being borne out of the palace, dead by his own doing, and the son breaking down and crying in front of his father's broken body. Wow. That really is so much more than it ever was when I first wrote it.

I plan to have a detatched prologue that explains the whole "evil tyrant - son - not happy - kicked out of country" thing. And then I will start the story proper ten years later. It will begin with the character I was talking about who is a member of the army of one of the petty lords in the south of the empire. I also plan to have many events told from the third person around the son and around the emperor, and of course, other people from time to time. Most of all, I will explore how different people perceive the same events. I've already done this some: I wrote something last year that was the whole story, only from the point of the aforementioned member of the southern lord's army.

That's essentially the storyline as I see it right now. Let me know what you think! (If you want to, that is - that was an invitation, not a command.)